s been wounded in what should have been the house
of his friends; that the banner of his religion which is broad enough
to float over the wide world with all its sin and misery, has been
drenched with the blood of persecution, trampled in the mire of slavery
and stained by the dust of caste proscription; but I believe that men
are beginning more fully to comprehend the claims of the gospel of
Jesus Christ. I am not afraid of what men call infidelity. I hold the
faith which I profess, to be too true, too sacred and precious to be
disturbed by every wave of wind and doubt. Amid all the religious
upheavals of the Nineteenth Century, I believe God is at the helm, that
there are petrifactions of creed and dogma that are to [be] broken up,
not by mere intellectual speculations, but by the greater solvent of
the constraining love of Christ, and it is for this that I am praying,
longing and waiting. Let schoolmen dispute and contend, the faith for
which I most ardently long and earnestly contend, is a faith which works
by love and purifies the soul."

"Mr. Thomas, I believe that there is something real about your religion,
but some of these white Christians do puzzle me awfully. Oh, I think
that I will go. I am sick and tired of the place. Everything seems to be
against me."

"No, Charley; stay for your mother's sake. I know a noble and generous
man who is brave enough to face a vitiated public opinion, and rich
enough to afford himself the luxury of a good conscience. I shall tell
him your story and try to interest him in your behalf. Will you stay?"

"I certainly will if he will give me any chance to get my living and
help my mother."

"It has been said that everything has two handles, and if you take it by
the wrong handle it will be too hard to hold."

"I should like to know which is the right handle to this prejudice
against color."

"I do not think that there is prejudice against color in this country."

"No prejudice against color!" said Charley Cooper,[9] opening his eyes
with sudden wonder. "What was it that dogged my steps and shut door
after door against me? Wasn't that prejudice against color?"

"Whose color, Charley? Surely not yours, for you are whiter than several
of Mr. Hazleton's clerks. Do you see in your case it was not prejudice
against color?"

"What was it, then?"

"It was the information that you were connected by blood with a once
enslaved and despised people on whom society had placed its ba